Satlyt Raises $8 Million Seed Round to Develop Artificial Intelligence Software for Satellites

Satlyt, a startup co-founded by former Google and SpaceX product manager Rama Afullo, has raised an $8 million seed round. The company has headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, and Nairobi. Non Sibi Ventures, led by partners including former NASA astronaut Bernard Harris and Kent Lucas, led the funding round. Instead of building spacecraft, Satlyt develops software to run artificial intelligence models directly on satellites.

The software aims to help spacecraft process data in space, which reduces expensive data downlinks to Earth and resolves operational issues faster. Earlier this year, Satlyt deployed Google DeepMind’s Gemma AI model on a Momentus spacecraft to handle software error transmissions. Satlyt software is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX rocket alongside Google's Project Suncatcher prototype.

The upcoming mission involves a spacecraft built by Indian startup TakeMe2Space, with customers including NASA and space surveillance startup Stellerian. Next year, Satlyt plans to demonstrate a shared computing system spanning two different satellites. Afullo aims to have the software operating on 20 percent of all satellites by the end of the decade.